I picked up Contrast from Compulsion today and beat it in one sitting. It’s a really impressive story beautifully executed with a brilliant and distinct visual style. I love the world and style. It’s only $10 Canadian and only took me about 3 hours to beat so it’s definitely worth a playthrough. Only thing is the controls are a little slippery but I feel it deserves far better reviews than it got. It’s very different from We Happy Few but it shares that game’s unique visual style and storytelling flair. I’m very excited to see what they do next, I believe they made this game with only 6 people and We Happy Few with 40. They’re currently at 69 employees and growing, and that number will only get bigger when they give a peek behind the curtains.
Unpopular Take:
If this the inevitable 343 hit-piece, let it drop tonight. Better now at the start of the year when it would be so easily forgotten by everything else.
343 said their peace in December. Let the hit-piece come out now, have it thrown around in our face for a week or two, then everybody forgets it by middle of February.
It would be worse to have Halo Infinite start regaining hype, have an approaching Xbox Games Studio Showcase, then Jason’s hit-piece comes and sucks the air out of the room.
Also, piss off Jason. 343 is under enough scrutiny from LITERALLY EVERYONE ON THE PLANET, they don’t need to have a hit-piece thrown at them like a cudgel.
But if this 343’s time, let it come tonight. It’ll be forgotten about by the end of the month.
We don’t know Jason’s angle to be fair. I believe last summer he heard Infinite was Uncharted 4 like in terms of development. Had some difficulties but not a mess. For all we know Staten + an extra year really righted the ship.
If thats the case awesome their blog post in December was really assuring those new screens looked fantastic
Jason is a helluva journalist with an attitude that makes him seem smug or arrogent. He does great work, but I don’t like his attitude but I RESPECT what he does.
Staten seems to be the resident fixer. He helped get Crackdown 3 over the finish line in decent shape. People can scoff at a 60 Metacritic, but a 60 is better than a 30 or a cancellation after a massive investment. The difference being I think Halo Infinite were it to launch this year would probably get high 60s low 70s. With this extra year, it could go much higher.
Yea I think infinite at least 84 so around halo 5 numbers
Agreed. Could be even higher. I forgot to mention the guy many credit for fixing MCC’s multiplayer as helping get it great for this one, and we already know from Phil that it was almost done. Between an extra year of polish, two resident fixers, ample flighting on the horizon and a really promising premise, I think it should all work out.
Yea media wants it to fail so badly so it gets clicks
About unannounced stuff?
Not that I’ve heard yet but I always assumed there’d be stuff.
Thats pretty neat
If we don’t get some kind of Banjo related announcement this year then ill just assume the series won’t make a return anytime soon.
Yep. The Coalition is excellent and I want them to continue developing and releasing Gears games similar to Hivebusters since that’s what I prefer compared to the open areas of Gears 5 but at the same time, I would love to see them have a second team to create a new IP or a different genre within Gears. Imagine a third person Gears survival horror game like The Evil Within but obviously set in the Gears universe. But it all is what it is.
Not trying to be a rules guy, but this doesn’t have to do with Xbox Studios and would probably be better in Community or it’s own thread. But you already posted it in the community thread.
The hit piece will have little impact if the next time they show off gameplay, it looks impressive.
Next week I’m getting my Seagate 1 TB Expansion Card and ready to start my Xbox Series X review, but:
What I can write about exclusive content? All the studios projects are in early development state and some just not started yet, Xbox didn’t bother to share any information about release windows, so it’s safe to assume nothing ready at least for another 3 years. Yes, there’s no alternate for “waiting”
Xbox Series X|S are great pieces of hardware, software, services but when it comes to exclusive content, it’s not.
My early score is 8/10 but according to this list 
it may be dropped to 7/10
As already been stated, that list does not include everything.
Does anyone remember if in 2020 or any years prior there was an list of games coming exclusively to Xbox? I feel like this wording and type of article is new. I know it’s probably nothing but if they haven’t used the same sort of article and heading like that I wonder if it’s saying something.